Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to hold an historic meeting with North Korean officials during the Winter Olympics in South Korea, but the North Koreans canceled at the last minute, Mr. Pence’s office said Tuesday.
Mr. Pence was ready to meet with Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of both North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the Communist country’s nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam. However, the North Koreans scrapped the Feb. 10 meeting two hours before it was set to start, the vice president’s office confirmed.
“This administration will stand in the way of Kim’s desire to whitewash their murderous regime with nice photo ops at the Olympics,” the vice president’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, said in a statement. “Perhaps that’s why they walked away from a meeting or perhaps they were never sincere about sitting down.”
Mr. Ayers said Pyongyang “dangled a meeting in hopes of the vice president softening his message, which would have ceded the world stage for their propaganda during the Olympics.”
“Instead, the vice president met with defectors who escaped tyranny, hosted Fred Warmbier whose son was essentially murdered by North Korea, pointed out their atrocious record on human rights and enslavement of hundreds of thousands of their people, spoke about their hostile plans with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and announced a new round of tough economic sanctions were on the way,” he said.
“North Korea would have strongly preferred the vice president not use the world stage to call attention to those absolute facts or to display our strong alliance with those committed to the maximum pressure campaign,” Mr. Ayers concluded.
The State Department said although Mr. Pence was willing to meet, he would have used the opportunity to “drive home the necessity of North Korea abandoning its illicit ballistic missile and nuclear programs.”
“We regret their failure to seize this opportunity,” spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.
Mr. Pence, who led the U.S. delegation to the Pyeongchang Olympics, had forcefully confronted North Korea’s nuclear ambitions during stops in Japan and South Korea. He announced the toughest sanctions yet against Pyongyang were imminent.
The meeting was two weeks in the making, and started when the Central Intelligence Agency first got word that the North Koreans wanted to meet with Mr. Pence when he was on the Korean Peninsula, according to a White House official. A second official said the initiative for the meeting came from South Korea, which acted as an intermediary between the two sides to set up the meeting.
North Korea sent athletes to compete at the games along with a delegation including its nominal head of state and Ms. Kim, leading to speculation that U.S. officials might engage in informal talks at some point.
But while U.S. officials had left open the possibility that Mr. Pence could potentially meet with the North Koreans during the visit, they had emphasized that no such meeting was expected.
“The president made a decision that if they wanted to talk, we would deliver our uncompromising message,” Mr. Ayers said. “If they asked for a meeting, we would meet. He also made clear that until they agreed to complete denuclearization, we weren’t going to change any of our positions or negotiate.”
South Korean President Moon Jae-in held two meetings with Mr. Pence, after once meeting with Ms. Kim.
Mr. Pence was seated near the North Korean leader’s sister at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, but they didn’t acknowledge each other.
• This article is based in part on wire-service reports.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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